In Italy about one-third of the Roma and Sinti population lives in settlements (Brunello 19963, Raxen 20094). The marginalization, social exclusion and bad housing situation within settlements are an important obstacle to their integration, affecting several dimensions of life, such as health, employment and education opportunities.
Given this context, a group of researchers organized a workshop in order to revitalize and deepen the political and cultural debate on housing policies for the Roma and Sinti by connecting policy-makers and their agenda with scholars and researchers working on the same topic. The debate was also inspired by presenting and discussing international case studies in where policy-makers, researchers and NGOs faced the same issues.
The meeting aimed at providing new theoretical insights and different points of view to Italian policy through linking international and national debate, researchers and policy-makers’ perspective. One of the parallel sessions discussed the situation of Bologna, one of the cities where the Finally research was carried out.  The workshop was funded by the Council of Europe.